The “Self” under COVID-19: Social role disruptions, self-authenticity and present-focused coping

Jingshi (Joyce) Liu; Amy N. Dalton; Jeremy Lee

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0256939

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 10, 2021
20 Jul 2021 Decision Letter - Frantisek Sudzina, Editor PONE-D-21-18664 The self under COVID-19: Social role disruptions, self-authenticity and present-focused coping PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Lee, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 03 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Frantisek Sudzina Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: 1.The manuscript has good identification of keywords and its cognitive appeal to readers' knowledge, skills and motives turning effective the communication. In terms of data, the operability of the hypotheses is relevant and leads to an understanding of the meaning of the results which are supported by them, the use of experiences supported by surveys anticipates the doubts that have arisen and increase the rigour of the study which, however, should be much more explained in words by the numerical results as it expands the possibility of increasing the number of readers and their interest. Here is the suggestion. As for sampling, the intention to represent the study and its consequences seem to us to be sufficient to identify the effects arising from the experiences and other conditions imposed on the investigation namely in the issue of changing roles so profusely focused and replicated through the effects of COVID-19.The conclusions were credibly drawn and show adequate testing of hypotheses with significant results. 2. The statistical method is appropriate and well conducted, translating a good analysis of the data collected in a detailed way and with good information about the acceptability of the confirmed hypotheses. 3. The authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available. 4. The work expresses itself in appropriated English, although with some vocabulary gaps but tiny and that go unnoticed. Reviewer #2: My biggest concern is about unavailable data. I cannot agree with the generalization conclusion, not even for both "countries" students Humans are by nature social animals since Aristoteles and in the context of the paper I totally agree but nowadays this is not a consensual statement (eg. Thomas Hobbes). It’s not important but could be rephrased. Also the theoretical support about “present-focused coping” could be more updated. (e.g. Time Perspective Theory; Review, Research and Application Essays in Honor of Philip G. Zimbardo, 2015). I really appreciate the conclusions. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256939.r001
Revision 1
13 Aug 2021 Author Response Dear Dr. Sudzina, We begin by extending our thanks for the opportunity to revise our manuscript, “The self under COVID-19: Social role disruptions, self-authenticity and present-focused coping.” Per your invitation, we revised the paper based on the feedback of the review team. Our revision efforts were aimed directly at remedying the shortcomings identified. Thanks to the review team’s stewardship, the manuscript is clearer conceptually and empirically. For completeness, we address in detail each of the points below. Academic Editor: Per the journal requirements, we confirm that (1) our reference list does not contain any retracted articles, (2) our manuscript’s formatting adheres to PLOS ONE’s style guide, and (3) our ethics statement appears in the Method section of our manuscript. In addition to addressing the concerns of the reviewers, we took the liberty of making a few additional changes that are only editorial and have no bearing on our theory or results. In particular, we updated the examples of COVID-19-related social disruptions in our opening paragraph. We also updated our literature review so that our terminology maps on precisely to that used by the authors we are citing. Reviewer 1: Thank you for the integrative review as well as for your support of our work. Your sole recommendation, based on our understanding of your feedback, is that the studies “should be much more explained in words by the numerical results as it expands the possibility of increasing the number of readers and their interest.” We took this recommendation to heart and focused our efforts on allaying it. All studies now explain in greater detail the predictions, rationale for each analysis, and the implications of the results. We have also clarified parts of the study introductions (mostly to reinforce our predictions) and methods (mostly to make explicit our IVs and DVs). We thank you for pointing out this issue, and we believe the readability of the manuscript is stronger thanks to these additions. Our changes have added several additional lines of text throughout the document, primarily to the study descriptions. We hope these additions are within the parameters and warranted by the length-to-contribution ratio. Reviewer 2: We are grateful for the guidance offered and for your appreciation of our findings. We believe our revision has fully addressed each of your recommendations, which are fourfold. (1) “My biggest concern is about unavailable data” All data can be accessed from a downloadable Dropbox folder. On our initial submission, we made that link available in the methods sections of studies 2 and 4. The link is somewhat buried in these locations so we have now added it to a more prominent location, at the end of the section called “Sample size, statistical analyses and procedure disclosure.” All the data will continue to be available through this link. (2) “I cannot agree with the generalization conclusion, not even for both "countries’ students” We have toned down the claim that replication in different populations implies generalizability. We now state concretely (and only) that the effect of role change and the benefit of present-focused coping were observed in both the USA sample and Hong Kong sample. This change is reflected in text in the “Abstract”, the “Discussion” of Study 4, and the “Study Summary” under the “General Discussion.” (3) “Humans are by nature social animals since Aristoteles and in the context of the paper I totally agree but nowadays this is not a consensual statement (eg. Thomas Hobbes). It’s not important but could be rephrased.” We have removed the claim that “humans are by nature social animals” and replaced it with the statement that “Social roles are fundamental to people’s sense of self.” This change is reflected in the first sentence of the “Introduction.” (4) “Also the theoretical support about “present-focused coping” could be more updated. (e.g. Time Perspective Theory; Review, Research and Application Essays in Honor of Philip G. Zimbardo, 2015).” We thank you for providing us with this reference and have incorporated your feedback in two ways. First, in the section “Coping with inauthenticity under COVID-19: the role of temporal perspectives,” we now include a clear definition of temporal perspective and briefly review relevant literature on temporal perspective to acknowledge recent developments in the literature. Second, in the section “Contributions and Implications,” we now reference an additional recent article hinting at the potential adaptiveness of maintaining a present focus in socially insecure contexts. We stopped short of drawing a direct parallel between the papers we cite and our own research given the different social contexts being studied and dependent variables being measured but we do note that all are relevant to the underlying point that present-focused coping can be an adaptive strategy during crises. We thank the team for showing us a clear path to publication and hope the details of our revision notes met your expectations. Kind regards, Jingshi (Joyce) Liu Amy N. Dalton Jeremy Lee Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256939.r002
19 Aug 2021 Decision Letter - Frantisek Sudzina, Editor The “self” under COVID-19: Social role disruptions, self-authenticity and present-focused coping PONE-D-21-18664R1 Dear Dr. Lee, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Frantisek Sudzina Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256939.r003
Formally Accepted
27 Aug 2021 Acceptance Letter - Frantisek Sudzina, Editor PONE-D-21-18664R1 The “Self” under COVID-19: Social role disruptions, self-authenticity and present-focused coping Dear Dr. Lee: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Frantisek Sudzina Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256939.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .